The luxury of the essentials at Hotel Explora
We arrived at a hotel. We send Whatsapp to say that we have arrived at the hotel. We look out the window. Oh what beautiful views. We take a photo, apply the Valencia filter and upload it to Instagram . In two minutes, twenty likes. The ego begins to stretch. We look towards the table and someone has left us a basket with fruit and a bottle of champagne. That's from Twitter. One moment: the mail notification sounds. It's just a second, you have to respond to say that today, without fail, that pending text is ready. Wait a minute, you have to sign a petition that has arrived via Facebook. And yes, yes, we plan to go to that deckchair that awaits us horizontally. That's great, they retweeted the champagne tweet.
Now let's make a huge, strenuous effort. Let's imagine the following.
We arrived at a hotel. We look out the window. Oh what beautiful views. We look at the table. We see the fruits and the champagne. We eat them and we drink it. Bikini, sun protection and to the beach.
This second possibility is science fiction . The occasion makes the thief. If we have Wi-Fi, how not to fall? We are not supermen or superwomen. We talk about Wi-Fi because You can live without coverage (how long ago did we last talk on the phone?) but without Wi-Fi, you can't. . The idea is that hotels don't make it so easy for us, that they get angry if they see us sliding our finger like an ice skater across the surface of the phone.
There are certain hotels that are taking seriously the urge of some guests for digital detox . Even if it's a little bit. Therefore, they dedicate tech free zones where e-stuff cannot be used. The Paradise by Marriott , some resorts in Mexico and the Caribbean decided to set up an area during the winter months for those seeking a brancation, i.e. a vacation from your brain . The Marriotts conducted a study among 1,184 people and concluded that 82 percent used their social channels on vacation and 64 percent uploaded photos to their social networks, but also that 31 percent would throw their mobile into the sea if they could. For that 31, and as an intermediate and less radical solution, these zones were designed.
The search for the remote, for the disconnected, is paradoxical. On the one hand, we want to go far, far away, but we also want to tell it . The problem is that we want to do it soon. Traveling to an Amish village, the Atacama desert or a town on the smallest island of the Azores is very exciting, but we have to learn to manage the anxiety of not telling our entire timeline.
The same happens with hotels, those great masseuses of the ego. If we feel well treated and happy, we will want to share it. That there is no Wi-Fi is, paraphrasing Truman Capote and may the Capotistas (myself included) forgive me, a blessing and a whip . We demand free Wi-Fi in hotels as if it were shower water, perhaps as a preliminary step so that we can despise it later.
Lake Placid Lodge: a place to forget your cell phone
There are hotels, it almost always coincides that they are exquisite and of the highest level, where there is no coverage and Wi-Fi works only in certain common areas . It is part of your communication. The Maui travaasa It is one of them. The rooms are free of radios, televisions, clocks and computers. This also happens in the Explore Rapa Nui , in Easter Island , which cultivates essential luxury but is an exquisite place. Although there is currently coverage, when I went there was not. The first night I was there I was afraid of being so isolated. The second I had to assimilate that you can live without likes and without retweets. The third I did not even remember the mobile. Mobile: what is that? That romance with myself and that landing did not last long: "Baby, you're on the other side of the world and you're not telling anyone."
Other places take it further: the Costa Rican Four Seasons , in the Papagayo Peninsula launched the Disconnect to Reconnect program, in which withdraw customers' mobiles for 24 hours to carry out activities that do not require being connected. In fact, he has published a guide to everything that can be done without technology. Another case is that of Lake Placid Lodge of the Adirondacks ; It has a check in/check out package in which guests leave their mobile phone when they arrive and pick it up when they leave. This is an extreme experience and do not get on an eight thousand . Sometimes the digital craving is related to the lack of romance, that's why there are packages like the Romantic Revival, at the River Place Hotel , in Portland, in which the hotel staff takes the electronic devices and replaces them with wine, truffles, butler and late check-out . The hint is clear.
I like my brain and I don't want to part with it for a whole vacation, but it can be nice to say goodbye for a while. Goodbye Whatsapp group, I'm leaving you.